The existence of the files, dating from the 1960s to the 1990s, was confirmed by the former chief executive of the Scouts Australia, NSW branch Peter Olah and a former district and regional commissioner, Des Hocking, this week.

The branch this week denied it had any official or unofficial red files, saying they only kept a record of ''administrative matters arising during the provision of the scouting program which were not published but were available to police or any appropriate authority if needed''.

But a Scouts NSW spokeswoman said the organisation had passed on the claims about the files uncovered by the Herald to police.

It has been revealed that Scouts in the US kept secret ''perversion files'' on hundreds of suspected paedophiles.

The allegations about similar files being kept in Australia was uncovered after the Herald investigated how a suspected paedophile Scoutmaster in the Hunter was allowed to maintain contact with Scouts - some of whom he abused - despite being the subject of complaints from parents years before.

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This week, Mr Hocking confirmed the keeping of red files was common among commissioners.

Mr Hocking, who retired from Scouts three years ago, revealed the practice while explaining how Scouts had failed to quickly expel the paedophile Steve ''Skip'' Larkins, who abused Scouts in the 1990s around the Hunter region. Larkins was suspended in 2000 despite concerns being raised about him years earlier.

Mr Hocking said Scout leaders who were suspected of paedophile behaviour and named in his own ''red files'' were not reported to police because there had not been distinct criminal acts.

But the files still contained allegations of disturbing incidents, such as a case where a male Scoutmaster had written love letters to a 12- or 14-year-old boy Scout in the mid to late 1990s.

Another dealt with complaints that a young Scout leader was notorious for grabbing the underwear of girl Scouts.

He did not report the letter writer to the police because it was a ''stupid misdemeanour''.

''We had no evidence it had gone beyond a letter of infatuation. You couldn't cut someone's head off for it,'' he said.

Mr Hocking said both of the two Scout leaders detailed in the files had received official warnings and left the region. But he was unhappy to learn subsequently that the letter-writer Scoutmaster had received a significant scouting award in another region.

He said he burnt his red files after he moved out of scouting because he did not want them turning up at a dump and being read.

The keeping of files was not unheard of, said Mr Olah. He said the organisation had a ''half drawer'' of files detailing ''suspicions'' about leaders when he started working in the head office in the late 1990s.

He handed them to police soon after starting as chief executive in 1999-2000.

''There was stuff going back to the 1960s and most of those were people [who were complained about] who were either convicted or long dead,'' he said.

Mr Olah said files numbered probably in the low double figures.

Another former Scouting official, Charles Watson, said he was unaware of the practice of keeping ''red'' files but noted that Scout headquarters had been sent reports about suspected paedophiles which should still be archived somewhere.

Now an honorary commissioner, Mr Watson was a district commissioner at Scouts in the Mosman area in the 1980s when he tried to blow the whistle on Rod Corrie, who abused dozens of Scouts over a 30-year period.

The NSW branch described the allegations detailed by Mr Hocking as new and said that they had been forwarded to police.